Sunset from our condo in Maalea on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Photo by MeLinda.

Guest post by Lee

Ladies and gentlemen, I have been to the Great Wall of China, I have seen the Pyramids of Egypt, I’ve even witnessed a grown man satisfy a camel. But never in all my years as a sportscaster have I witnessed something as improbable, as impossible, as what we’ve witnessed here today!*

These are the comments that were going through my head after some amazing experiences that have occurred over the past few days in Hawaii.

Day 2 in Hawaii

Dangerous shorebreak sign in Maui. Photo by MeLinda.

After spending the morning of our first full day on Maui snorkeling and the morning of our second day snorkeling, MeLinda and I decide to try our hand at boogie boarding in the afternoon. Can’t be that hard — all you need is a board and some waves? How bad can the waves be even little kids are doing it? So we get out there and I’m trying to figure out if I should wear my prescription sunglasses out there or go blind. I converse with MeLinda and she is debating the same topic with her non-prescription sunglasses but we decide to go with our glasses on. I should know better than to take MeLinda’s advice on sunglass care as she is the BTK of sunglasses. We get out there and a few tame waves come by and everything seems good. Then I’m out about 50 feet from the beach and a big wave comes along and MeLinda and I go flying. Both pairs of glasses fly into the ocean and a set of expletives come from my mouth. I just lost a $400 pair of sunglasses in the ocean. MeLinda tells me to stay in the spot I am in and she is going to grab my snorkel gear (which have prescription lenses) so I can see if I can find them. Okay if you were to calculate the odds of finding anything in the ocean they would be slim. MeLinda and I once spent over an hour in a swimming pool looking for my wedding ring that flew off. So I put on the snorkel and start swimming around and within five minutes I find a pair of sunglasses. Holy cow, but of course they aren’t my glasses but they look like MeLinda’s so at least I saved her $10 pair. After another few minutes I find my pair and can’t believe my luck. I go back to MeLinda and hand her the glasses, turned out they weren’t hers. How many pairs of glasses are in the ocean? About 30 minutes later a guy comes by and says he lost a pair of glasses. We found the owner of our other pair of prescription glasses. The beach has a communication network and once a pair of glasses are found word goes around and even ends up on Craigslist.

On the Trilogy Sailboat headed toward Molokini Crater just off Maui. Photo by MeLinda.

Day 3 in Hawaii

MeLinda and I take an excursion to Molokini Crater. We are looking forward to a day of snorkeling at what is considered by many as Maui’s top snorkel site and maybe some whale sightings on the boat trip out. On the ride out we are able to see several humpback whales from afar. Once we reach Molokini we hit the water and start snorkeling for about 20 minutes until I spot something a little out of the ordinary. Wasn’t sure what it was at first glance and then realize it’s a seal. Not only is it a seal but later on I find out it’s a Hawaiian monk seal, which is on the critically endangered list with only 1,100 remaining. They grow to be 7 feet and weight 400 pounds, but this one was smaller than full-grown. It was awesome swimming next to him and being close enough that he looked directly in my eyes and seeing his adorable face. He seemed happy to see us and didn’t make any effort to move away quickly. Then a few other snorkelers come by and act like total douches. They go swam aggressively toward the seal getting way too close, and the seal growls and quickly moves away. MeLinda yells at the asshats but they aren’t paying any attention and wouldn’t care they ruined an awesome snorkeling experience. Why couldn’t this have been one of those episodes when animals attack? I didn’t want the guy killed but being a little roughed up wouldn’t have bothered me. The Hawaiian monk seal can be very peaceful and friendly animals and our captain said one of his friends encountered a seal in the wild and it actually hugged him.

(Our underwater camera, unfortunately, broke the day before so we don’t have photos or video. A fellow snorkeler promises to send us what she got, though. For now, enjoy this photo from the website of the Monk Seal Foundation. Go learn about them and donate to their cause.)

Check out the Monk Seal Foundation website monksealfoundation.org.

The third improbable event was later on the afternoon. MeLinda and I went to sit by the ocean and enjoy the rest of the afternoon doing nothing but soaking in the rays and listening to the waves. About an hour into our rest MeLinda has fallen asleep and I’m just staring out in the great wide expanses of the ocean and suddenly I see a humpback whale jump completely jump out of the water. It was just like the MetLife humpback whale commercial. Why do whales breach like this? Some say it’s for mating, others say it’s a show of strength but no matter what it was awesome. By the time I had awakened MeLinda from her dreams of a Mizzou basketball victory the event was over.

So for just 3 1/2 days into our Hawaii vacation we have definitely packed a lot into it and of course I have eaten pizza for 4 days in a row, so life is good.

*The opening lines are a quote from the movie Dodgeball.

Lee near our Maui condo at sunrise, trying to capture photos of the green sea turtles. Photo by MeLinda.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — “I think I see something menacing out there,” said Ken, one of the travel writers on our Extreme Kansas City press trip, as our van turned into the drive at Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas City, Kan. A 79-year-old writer from Tennessee, Ken had been fairly quiet on the first two days of the trip so his quip surprised us and the understated delivery of his words made us laugh.

For those of us preparing to ride Verrückt, ours was a nervous laugh. “Something menacing” looked downright threatening as I walked toward the wooden tower jutting into the otherwise flat landscape. The ride is twice as high as Kansas City code officials normally allow structures. This whole area had been farmland before it was developed a decade ago into Village West, a shopping, dining and entertainment district that is now Kansas’ No. 1 tourism destination.

We were there at 9:45 to go down the slide before the gates opened to the public at 10 a.m. Our guide, Layne, walked us past the line of hundreds waiting to get into the park. They weren’t there to get the first tube for the lazy river; they were there early to ensure they got to go down the world’s tallest water slide that opened in mid-July. As Layne took us through the gate that would be opening in just a few minutes he said, “Excuse me, coming through with some reporters.” A man shouted from the crowd: “Those look like your friends.”

Schlitterbahn is a family-owned and operated company started in New Braunfels, Texas, which has a German heritage, thus the name that translates to “slippery road.” Verrückt means “insane” in German.

Surprisingly, there were no waivers to sign. Instead, a ride staffer read aloud a warning about all that could happen to us on the ride, including “mental damage,” and we had to verbally acknowledge that we understood the risks. We then stood on a scale to determine if our group of three riders fell within the 400 and 550 pound range. We did, so we were given wrist bands and a handwritten No. 1 to represent the first raft of the day.

We were then sent up the tower’s 264 spiral stairway built from recycled railroad tankers. When you reach the top you are higher than Niagara Falls or the Statue of Liberty, and there’s a great view of Kansas Speedway and the Village West development to the west and the Kansas City skyline to the east. It’s hard to appreciate the view, though, when you’re thinking about your options for getting down.

The staff calls a Code 528 (264 steps up + 264 steps down) if a rider chickens out and chooses to walk. Our group decided to follow-through and were asked to step once more on a scale. Both scales we stepped on do not show a weight, just a red or green light.

Even though we’d just met, the three of us had wanted to ride together because neither me or Kathleen wanted to be in front and Tina actually wanted to be in front. We knew that we would be placed in the raft lightest in front to heaviest in back. Just by looking at each other we were certain Tina would get the seat she wanted. I ate a muffin AND a scone for breakfast just in case I needed a couple pounds to make my way to at least the middle seat ;-)

Since we didn’t actually know each others’ weight and the ride staff was insistent we ride in the correct order, I blurted out my weight and we were all able to take our spots in the raft. I ended up in the middle seat, which turned out to be the driest spot!

Once seated in the rubber raft that is on a conveyor belt, I was instructed to pull two velcro straps across myself. Just to be safe, I asked one of the ride staff to make sure I was strapped in correctly. I wanted to be strapped in as tight as possible! At this point, my breathing was getting pretty quick. I was trying to think of ways to stall us from going…asking questions. I don’t recall all that was said to us but what I do remember is: hold onto the rope or handles that line the inside of the raft and do not put your arms up or outside the raft at any time. Seriously, someone is going to do that?!? I was white-knuckling the “oh-shit” handles as soon as I saw them in the raft.

Kathleen, seated behind me, said exactly what I was thinking: “Shit. Shit. Shit. Why do I do this?”

As I was sitting in the raft 168 feet and 7 inches above the ground, all I could see in front of us was sky. No ride structure, no water … just sky and netting. That meant this ride was going straight down. This was the mental damage portion of the ride.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Why do I do this?”

A gate swung open and our raft moved forward, slowly at first and then there was a push and suddenly our entire raft tilted down. It felt like being at the edge of a building and being pushed over the side. The screaming started immediately and I was determined to keep my eyes open even though the instinct was to shut them. At some point, water was spraying in my face but I tried to keep at least one eye open.The front and back passengers got wet but not completely soaked. My hair got a little wet on one side and my feet and legs got wet when stepping into the pool of water at the end of the ride to get out.

What did I see? Nothing that I can remember! The entire ride is over in 18 seconds and travels the distance of two football fields. That’s a lot of blur.

Here’s what Schlitterbahn officials tell me I did:

that very first terrifying part was a free-fall of 17 stories in 4 seconds. We were traveling at a 60-degree angle and at about 50 miles per hour.

the raft hit a 22-degree dip and slowed down before blaster jets propelled us up a 55-foot hill that is considered the world’s largest uphill water slide. What goes up must come down, so there was then a 5-story plummet to end the ride.

Before I traveled from Wichita to Kansas City to ride Verrückt, I had several people shake their heads when I told them what I was doing. Someone swore there was no netting on the ride. Several told me about video they’d watched of rafts launching in one direction and riders being tossed in another direction on the hill portion of the ride. Many told me they would pee themselves if they went on the ride. All of this was fueled by the fact that the ride opening had been postponed from Memorial Day to mid-July.

(1) There is netting.

(2) That video was during development of the ride and before $1 million in design revisions were incorporated. Schlitterbahn likes to say the ride is “safe dangerous.”

(3) I did not pee myself.

After I had stopped screaming and the ride had stopped, my first reaction was: I would totally ride Verrückt again!

So are you ready to do it??? If so, you have only this weekend to get your scream on. The park closes after Labor Day and reopens in May 2015.

<photo> Our group on the initial drop. This is about where your brain and vocal cords sync up and the screaming starts.

<photo> Our group nearing the base of the drop; the raft plummets 17 stories in 4 seconds on this part of the ride.

<photo> Our group blasting down the 5-story hill, which is considered the tallest uphill water slide.

<photo> This photo is courtesy of Schlitterbahn because we were not allowed to take our cameras with us on the ride. I wanted you to see what it was like on the most terrifying part of the ride…right before you free-fall.

Disclosure: I was invited to ride Verrückt as part of a press trip; however, all opinions are my own. Schlitterbahn did not tell me to tell you I didn’t pee my pants. I really didn’t pee my pants.

Our last two days of the Summer of Schnyder (#schummer14) road trip were spent driving through familiar territory – from Cincinnati, Ohio, we went across Indiana, Illinois (which we passed through at the beginning of the trip, although farther north) and then into my home state of Missouri and finally Kansas.

We arrived in my hometown of Columbia, Mo., on Sunday afternoon in time to have dinner with my step-dad, my nephew and his wife and my sister-in-law at G&D, a small, family-owned steakhouse that opened a year before I was born. I remember having meals here every Friday night with my parents and aunt & uncle in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Since I wasn’t sure exactly when we would get to Columbia, I didn’t make plans with anyone ahead of time, I just texted a few people on my way into town. I was able to see a couple of friends briefly but it didn’t look like my schedule was going to work out with my dad, who lives about an hour northwest of Columbia. It turned out he had a doctor’s appointment in Columbia on Monday morning so he wouldn’t be home for us to stop by and see. Since he doesn’t have a cell phone, it would be hard to coordinate in the morning not knowing exactly how long his appointment would go. I talked to him on the phone and we just decided that I would get back in the fall and see him then.

When I woke up Monday morning, it was bothering me that I wasn’t going to get to see my dad. So I told Lee I wanted to just drive by the doctor’s office and maybe if it wasn’t a real big place we would see my dad’s car and we could wait for about 30 minutes to see if his appointment went quickly. We were trying to time leaving the hotel with when my dad’s appointment started. While we waited, Lee made a phone call to turn our cable back on. It should have been a quick call but Cox Communications made it a difficult process and transferred Lee to two people. Finally, I told him we needed to go so we would have to chance the call dropping as we took the elevator (it didn’t). We headed to the address of the doctor’s office and as soon as I turned the corner I see that it’s right next to one of the huge hospitals and there are huge parking garages and multiple buildings. “Well, there’s no way we will find his car here,” I said, as I turned by the building to turn around and head back out. As we drove by the building Lee spotted my dad standing outside waiting for his car to be brought to him! What are the chances?!? Lee jumped out of the car to go tell my dad we were there and to coordinate where we could meet up for breakfast. Getting to have breakfast with him made my day!

On the way out of town we drove by Memorial Stadium, home of the Missouri Tigers. I couldn’t believe how much the renovations during the off-season have changed the profile of the stadium. Can’t wait to catch a game there this fall!

After breakfast we drove home to Wichita. As a sign that we weren’t yet sick of each other, we actually took the long way home. We’ve never done this before and I highly recommend getting off the major highways in Kansas, either if you’re a Kansan or a visitor passing through the state. We followed part of the Flint Hills National Scenic Byway from Emporia down to I-35 just east of Wichita. It was a beautifully, sunny day and it was nice to not feel like we were in a rush to get where we were going, even after 28 days in the car together.

<photo> A sure sign we were getting back to the real midwest — Sonic drive-thrus!

<photo> I didn’t catch a photo of the super moon in Columbia but the sky earlier in the evening was beautiful.

<photo> Me and my step-dad Charles.

<photo> Me and my dad, Jim.

<photo> Flint Hills of Kansas.

<photo> Reflection of our vehicle.

<photo> Lee driving us the long way home through the Flint Hills National Scenic Byway.

~~~

#Schummer14 – Lee & MeLinda Schnyder are turning their home in Wichita, Kan., over to a friend and taking a month-long road trip. They’ll travel from Kansas to Ontario and Quebec, Canada; then through Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The trip home will include stops in Ohio and Missouri. Beyond the blog, you can follow #Schummer14 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

We made another change to our Summer of Schnyder itinerary by altering our route home. Instead of going through Cleveland, we went straight to Cincinnati because we realized that we didn’t really have time to do much there (and Lee had already been there for a baseball game).

Lee had been to Cincinnati years ago and saw a game at the old stadium; I’d never been. But the main draw was that our friend Melissa had recently moved there and we wanted to hang out with her for a few days.

We arrived on a Friday in time for a late lunch at Dewey’s Pizza, where we had tasty pizza even though their salads looked yummy. These kinds of choices – I’ll let you decide if they were good or bad – were the theme for the entire weekend!

The three of us went to a Cincinnati Reds game that night at Great American Ball Park. We parked at Newport on the Levee in Kentucky and walked across the bridge to the stadium. It was a really nice stadium with great views, and I liked that there were a lot of local food options in the stadium. Lee had a burger from regional fast food chain Frisch’s Big Boy and I went with a Skyline cheese coney. Lee loved his burger, I wouldn’t get the coney again. The Cincinnati-style chili is too sweet for me and the amount of cheese on this tiny hot dog was insane. Next time I’ll go with the $16 helmet nachos. We watched these being made and they looked good & messy: they fill a full-size plastic batting helmet with chips and then pour on ladles of salsa and cheese.

We stuck around for fireworks after the game and were surprised to get to see 20 Reds legends take the field while the pyro team was preparing. The next night was an induction into the Reds Hall of Fame so all of these guys were back for that. It was neat to see the Griffeys and Johnny Bench, and I realized I should have worn my Baseball Bunch t-shirt (I wore it the next day)!

Saturday we had lunch at Tom+Chee, which Lee and I had seen featured on the TV show Shark Tank. They started as a food truck in Cincinnati and became so popular that they now have storefronts and are starting to franchise. The concept is grilled cheese and tomato soup…they have simple as well as fancy versions. I love grilled cheese sandwiches so I don’t mind paying $6 for a good one with bacon! Yum.

We spent the afternoon at Union Terminal, opened in 1933 for the railroad and now home to several museums along with still being an active train station. I love these old Art Deco buildings. Melissa and I went to the Diana, A Celebration traveling exhibit that had been touring the world since 2003 and was at its final stop before the items return to Princess Di’s sons. Lee checked out the natural history and the Cincinnati history museums.

On the way back to the suburb where Melissa lives, we stopped at a well-known local ice cream shop – Graeter’s. We had A LOT of ice cream during a month of driving in mostly touristy destinations but THIS is the ice cream I am still craving y’all. They offer mail-order and I’m considering it. It is hand-dipped and their specialty is chips … so there’s mint chocolate chip, their best-selling black raspberry chocolate chip and seasonal favorites like the one I had – banana chocolate chip. I was expecting the little hard chocolate chunks that I’m not really a fan of but this was chewy chunks of milk chocolate. Amazingly good. Melissa’s brother told us that they had a unique process that results in each scoop of ice cream having different size chunks so I looked it up on their website. They’ve been in business since 1870 and although they’ve now grown to be a commercial ice cream operation, they still use their small-batch process. They use a French Pot method that involves hand-stirring the chocolate in to create the chips and making just two gallons of ice cream at a time.

That night we had dinner with Melissa’s brother and mother at a restaurant called Flipdaddy’s. As you can see from above, I had blown any calorie counting for the day out of the Ohio River so I decided to go big at dinner: I had a Macdaddy, which was a giant burger topped with grilled macaroni and cheese.

Cincinnati = good friends and good food! They are promising me donuts on my next visit, but first we gotta stop for some Graeter’s. I’m thinking the Reds need to start serving a full-size helmet full of their chocolate chip ice cream!

<photo> Melissa and Lee on the bridge from Kentucky to Ohio with the Cincinnati ballpark and football stadium in the background.

<photo> View from our seats at Great American Ball Park.

<photo> The cauldrons light up when a Cincinnati pitcher strikes out a batter — we saw it happen 11 times!

<photo> View from the outfield at Great American Ball Park.

<photo> Melissa and MeLinda at the game.

<photo> Post-game fireworks.

<photo> Skyline cheese coney at the ballgame. No, I did not order extra cheese.

<photo> Lee with the Big Boy at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

<photo> Tom+Chee: grilled cheese with bacon and a dipper of tomato soup.

<photo> Union Terminal in Cincinnati.

<photo> Some of the Art Deco-ness of the train station in Cincy.

<photo> The traveling Diana exhibit at Union Terminal.

<photo> The Macdaddy burger at Flipdaddy’s — a burger topped with grilled macaroni and cheese.

~~~

#Schummer14 – Lee & MeLinda Schnyder are turning their home in Wichita, Kan., over to a friend and taking a month-long road trip. They’ll travel from Kansas to Ontario and Quebec, Canada; then through Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The trip home will include stops in Ohio and Missouri. Beyond the blog, you can follow #Schummer14 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

We have been fortunate on the Schummer of Schnyder trip to not have very many days of long driving with no stops – we pretty much went state to state here in the northeast. For example, we had breakfast in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and lunch in Portland, Maine, where we spent the rest of the day. Even driving up to our farthest eastern destination – Bar Harbor – was a slow drive winding along the coast of Maine with stops in many of the small harbor towns.

So when Thursday, Aug. 7 came along we were prepared to suck it up and just drive. Well, Lee did the driving and I sat there reading magazines and looking out the window enough to make sure we were headed in the right direction.

We originally planned to have a day and night in Connecticut to explore, but we realized we just didn’t have enough time to really see the state so we’ve shelved having Mystic Pizza for another trip. We also decided against a stop at the Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, a destination we decided we could get back to via an airplane trip sometime.

Maybe I should explain here that we only count visiting a state if we spend the night there. So driving through doesn’t count toward on our list of state’s we’ve visited. This would explain why we chose to spend the night in Wheeling, West Virginia, on Day 24 of #Schummer14. We are now only missing: Delaware (both), Connecticut (both), Idaho (both), North Dakota (both), Alaska (both), Oregon (Lee), Mississippi (Lee), North Carolina (MeLinda).

Our route once we left Cape Cod included 35 minutes through Rhode Island (at a diagonal, it would’ve been much shorter straight across), lengthwise along the coast of Connecticut, then briefly into New York and New Jersey before spending more than three hours on the horrible Pennsylvania Turnpike that incredulously charged us $17 and dumped us out on 14 miles of hell also known as I-70 in West Virginia.

As I posted on Facebook, we were in West Virginia 16 miles and 10 hours and that was 16 miles and 10 hours of my life I will never get back. At the end of a very long driving day, I was pretty annoyed that the Marriott in Wheeling didn’t warn me when I’d talked to them earlier in the day to ask for a quiet room and let them know we’d be arriving late. Clearly this was major ongoing night construction that affected the exit for their hotel as well as closure of the exit before the hotel, removing the alternative route available once drivers realized two miles of I-70 were going to take 45 minutes to get through at 10 p.m. When we mentioned this to the desk clerk the next morning (letting him know it would be a courtesy to tell future guests), his response was: “Oh, I don’t usually go that route.”

My response {in my mind}: You know what route you can go right now, buddy? Yeah, you AND the horse you rode in on.

I have always been a fan of the Kansas Turnpike and now I would consider myself the president of the fan club.

We did enjoy the day overall though. We had beautiful scenery at times, tried TastyKakes for the first time, ate great barbecue in Pennsylvania and saw a gorgeous sunset. After 699 miles, seven states and 14 hours that day, we arrived at our destination tired but safe.

<Photo> Sorry to my Pennsylvania friends but I guess I didn’t try the right flavor of TastyKake. I had the butterscotch krumpet and it wasn’t anything special. It was like a twinkie with no filling.

<photo> I joked on Facebook that this was my favorite photo of West Virginia … on my way out of the state!

~~~

#Schummer14 – Lee & MeLinda Schnyder are turning their home in Wichita, Kan., over to a friend and taking a month-long road trip. They’ll travel from Kansas to Ontario and Quebec, Canada; then through Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The trip home will include stops in Ohio and Missouri. Beyond the blog, you can follow #Schummer14 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Welcome to my blog

Hi, I'm Melinda. I can see normal from my backyard but I think I'll stay right over here where I am ... I'm starting to get comfortable here. On this blog I will be sharing my views on life, travel & my pursuit of happiness.